


three portraits

by Jelly



Series: wholesome truths [5]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, family portraits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 23:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jelly/pseuds/Jelly
Summary: The first time Callum stands for a portrait, he’s six years old.[For tumblr user @woo-cash whose art gives me actual life]





	three portraits

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this incredible piece of art](http://woo-cash.tumblr.com/post/183389017105/more-timeskip-stuff-because-why-not) by tumblr user @woo-cash.

The first time Callum stands for a portrait, he’s six years old.

It’s his stepfather’s official family portrait; the one that will hang in the gallery for years and years and years. He doesn’t really understand - doesn’t fully have a grasp on the concept of how long ‘years and year and years’ is - but his mother straightens his clothes and neatens his hair, and tells him to smile his biggest, proudest smile so that the artist can capture him at his best.

Callum does. He stands as still as he can and smiles until his cheeks ache, and it feels like hours before King Harrow’s own smile begins to fail. “Are we done yet?” he asks through gritted teeth. “Looks pretty done to me.” 

Lord Viren chuckles. “Yes,” he says. “It’s beautiful. An excellent likeness. You can all move now.”

They do. Callum lets his shoulders slump and his smile fall, rubs his cheeks with both hands to ease the ache, and lets his mother lead him off the dais. He cranes his head to look at the portrait as he’s ushered past and makes a face.

It’s just like all the other portraits in the gallery. There’s nothing overtly special about it, and he’s seen nicer, less boring ones painted by street painters in his mother’s hometown.

“What do you think, Callum?” his mother asks.

He shrugs. “It’s okay,” he says, because it is. It’s not  _ bad _ , but he thinks it could be better. His smile isn’t quite right; his stepfather’s shoulders a little too square; his mother’s eyes just slightly too slanted. “I don’t get it,” he mutters. “It doesn’t look special.”

His mother smiles kindly at him, shifting baby Ezran in her arms. “It’s our first portrait as a family,” she says. “Look at it - we’re all smiling and happy, and most of all we’re  _ together _ . That’s what makes it special.”

Callum studies it - looks at his stepfather’s smile and his mother’s face and his baby brother in her arms. He can’t think of any other pictures of them - not all together, like this. He supposes he can agree.

  
  
  


He’s eighteen when he stands for Ezran’s official portrait as King.

In the mess that was the war and its aftermath, Ezran had never really found the time to get one done, but now, in the relative peace between Xadia and the human kingdoms, he commissions an artist from the elven town of Asvedell to paint one for him.

“I could have done it?” Callum offers.

Ezran shakes his head at him. “You can’t if you’re in it with me.”

“It’s your  _ official  _ portrait as  _ King. _ ”

“Yep,” says Ezran. “And I want you in it with me. You and Rayla both.”

He can’t argue anymore than that because Ezran drags him into the throne room with him before he even has the chance to fix his hair or straighten his shirt. Rayla is already waiting for them there looking sullen and uncomfortable in her formalwear.

“I get you wanting Callum in it,” she says, straightening Callum’s shirt, both because of habit and because it’s lopsided and won’t look good in the portrait. “You don’t need  _ me _ in it.”

“You’re both in it, and that’s final,” says Ezran, voice firm to remind them that he’s King, glint in his eye to remind them that he’s still just a kid. He’s never known their mother, and their father had died long before Ezran was ever ready to be King. There’s no one else but them.

Callum catches Rayla’s gaze and they chuckle, understanding in their eyes. They climb the dais with no further arguments, and take their places behind him. 

To everyone else, it’s a portrait of the King and his closest advisors.

To them, it’s a portrait of Ezran and the only family he has left.

That’s what makes it special.

  
  
  


He’s twenty-four when he decides he needs a family portrait of his own.

Sarai is five now. She’s inherited an eye from both of them, along his dark hair, her mother’s pale skin and her connection to the moon, and his proclivity for magic. She’s fidgety and excitable, and the idea of standing still for even a couple of minutes makes her scowl.

“I don’t wanna stand for a portrait.”

“It’s only a couple of hours, little one,” says Rayla, crouched in front of her to brush her hair out of her eyes.  “Once we’re all done, you can go and play with Bait, okay?”

Sarai pouts at her mother. “A couple of hours?”

Rayla chuckles and catches Callum’s eye. There’s a complaint there about standing still for two hours too, but she doesn’t voice it. Instead, she ushers Sarai to him and takes her place by his side, fingers laced lightly with his. Ezran - who’s taller than him now, which he secretly resents - claps his shoulder and stands on his other side.

It’s all he really ever wanted.

Peace between on both sides of the border; his relationship with his brother, still strong and unyielding; his wife and daughter, safe and happy and healthy. He doesn’t need to be told to smile his biggest and proudest smile today.

He does that on his own, knowing that, whatever the outcome, this particular portrait will always be special.


End file.
